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locked up 2019

Lewis-Ranwell, a privately-educated former scaffolder from North Devon, admits killing the men but says he was so mentally ill at the time that he did not know what he was doing was wrong.

The Crown say he bears some criminal responsibility and should be found guilty of manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

Police are investigating at an address in Bonhay Road in Exeter, Devon, where the body of a man, aged 80, was found on monday (11/2) afternoon. February 13, 2019. Police have launched a multiple murder enquiry after the bodies of three elderly people - including two 84-year-old twins - were discovered just a mile apart. See SWNS story SWPLdeaths. The three alleged victims, who are all in their 80s, discovered in two properties in Exeter, Devon. In what police described as an "unprecedented" incident for the city, a man has now been arrested on suspicion of three murders. An investigation was initially launched after paramedics found the body of a man, aged 80, inside a property on Bonhay Road near St David's railway station on Monday afternoon. And later on yesterday, (Tuesday) the bodies of two other men, named locally as twins Dick and Roger, both 84, were found inside a large house on Cowick Lane.

In their closing remarks, lawyers for both sides emphasized that Lewis-Ranwell was extremely ill at the time he killed the three men. The key question for the jury is what was in the mind of the killer at the time.

But Mr Richard Smith, for the Crown, said they did not accept the defence of insanity.

He said the case was like a jigsaw and the pieces had to be ‘carefully pieced together’.

Alexander Lewis-Ranwell triple murder trial

“There will be some parts of the evidence that clearly fit and others that do not.”

He reminded the jury that they had heard from three psychiatrists during the trial who had interviewed the defendant while he was being held at Broadmoor High Security Hospital.

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Lewis-Ranwell, a paranoid schizophrenic, gave accounts to each of them about what was in his mind at the time of the killings. He said each expert found it difficult to answer the question of insanity with any certainty.

The prosecution say Lewis-Ranwell understood on some level that what he was doing was wrong because of some actions he took.

Mr Smith questioned why, after killing Mr Payne, did the defendant leave by the back door. He also said Lewis-Ranwell was seen on CCTV running close to the Carter brothers’ house some time after killing them.

Exeter triple murder trial stories

The prosecution also say the defendant was not consistent in his account of why he killed.

The defendant, who did not give evidence in the trial, told one psychiatrist that police were persecuting him while telling another he was working for them tracking down paedophiles and missing girls.

Police are investigating at an address in Cowick Lane in Exeter, Devon, where the bodies of two men, were found on tuesday (12/2). February 13, 2019. Police have launched a multiple murder enquiry after the bodies of three elderly people - including two 84-year-old twins - were discovered just a mile apart. See SWNS story SWPLdeaths. The three alleged victims, who are all in their 80s, discovered in two properties in Exeter, Devon. In what police described as an "unprecedented" incident for the city, a man has now been arrested on suspicion of three murders. An investigation was initially launched after paramedics found the body of a man, aged 80, inside a property on Bonhay Road near St David's railway station on Monday afternoon. And later on yesterday, (Tuesday) the bodies of two other men, named locally as twins Dick and Roger, both 84, were found inside a large house on Cowick Lane.

The defence says Lewis-Ranwell did not know what he was doing was wrong.

Mr Andrew Langdon QC for the defence traced the defendant’s actions in the days before the attack and said it was clear he was suffering from an acute psychosis with multiple delusions.

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On Thursday Dr Timothy Amos described Lewis-Ranwell as ‘nine out ten’ in terms of the severity of his mental illness at the time of the deaths.

“He was in the top two per cent,” he said. “He was nine out of 10.

“From a clinical point of view I think he was very unwell. I didn’t see him at the time but from his account and others at the time he seems to have been one of the people who would have been one of the illest I’ve ever seen, if I’d seen him at the time.”